School Bus Routine Visual Schedule Cards

About this resource

A posted, numbered sequence for the school bus routine that comes with its own data. Most routine-sequence sets stop at the pictures; this one adds a completion log, a weekly roll-up and a phrase bank behind it, so a step that stops needing a prompt turns into a line on a page a case manager can bring to a meeting.

The Routine

• School Bus (5 steps) — wait at the stop, get on the bus, sit down, get off the bus, walk to the door

This routine covers the bus stop and the ride itself, ending at the building door — it does not depict what happens once a student is inside. If you need the classroom steps on either side of the ride, those are separate products in this collection: School Arrival Routine Visual Schedule Cards (walking in after arrival) and Dismissal and Pack-Up Routine Visual Schedule Cards (packing up to leave); none of the three overlap or show the same moment.

One picture is deliberately reused: getting on the bus and getting off the bus share the same bus picture, because both are the same vehicle — the printed step number, not a second picture, keeps the two cards in order. This is disclosed on the card, the strip page, and in this listing. Every other picture was chosen to be named in one word by a young child, in color AND in the black-and-white set: an hourglass, a bus, a chair, a door. All were checked directly at card size in both art sets before this file was built and read clearly with no substitute picture needed. Cards are 2 inches square.

The Strip

A quick-reference view of the whole routine in numbered order on one page, in color and in ink-saver, so the fixed order is visible at a glance without cutting anything apart. The number prints on every cut-apart card too, so a dropped or reshuffled set can always be put back in order.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the log, the roll-up, the family update page, the hand-off page and the blank cards, or print and use a pen. The card and strip pages print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document.

It is a posted, numbered picture sequence for one everyday routine, and a place to record whether each step needed help. It is not a bus safety or boarding procedure, a behavior plan, or a program of any kind, and it promises no outcome. It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule; how it is used with a student, and for how long, is what your team's plan says. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number, and your district's own bus rule gets a blank line of its own on the hand-off page. The log counts one thing per step: whether help was needed, not what kind or in what order to remove it.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers, paraprofessionals and bus aides who teach everyday routine sequences to early, pre-reading or emerging-language students, case managers who need that teaching to show up as data, and the families who get the update sent home.

More In The Collection

This is part of the Visual Supports Collection, alongside School Arrival Routine Visual Schedule Cards, Dismissal and Pack-Up Routine Visual Schedule Cards, and Home Morning Routine Visual Schedule Cards; more picture-card sets — routine strips, choice boards, calm-down cards — are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.

Pictures (color pages): Noto Emoji by Google, Apache License 2.0. Pictures (ink-saver pages): Fluent Emoji, Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation, MIT License.